But now, the future is tied to two things — an NCAA hearing and a coaching search — instead of one. The NCAA will file its response to Ole Miss in the coming days, if it hasn't already. A hearing will be set up sometime afterward and a resolution should be reached sometime this fall.

So Ole Miss just lost its coach a week and a half before the start of camp. It's going into the season with two new coordinators and Luke, who will be handling head coach responsibilities for the first time.

But Luke isn't in trouble with the NCAA. Neither is offensive coordinator Phil Longo nor defensive coordinator Wesley McGriff, who was promoted to associate head coach Thursday night.

Running backs coach Derrick Nix and tight ends coach Maurice Harris are named in the notice of allegations, but the stakes aren't as high for them as it was for Freeze.

So that possible distraction is no longer hovering over the program. But Ole Miss is still in the strange spot where it willhave to defend Freeze's compliance history before the Committee on Infractions after pushing him to the side for a pattern of personal misconduct.

Chancellor Jeff Vitter and Bjork both backed Freeze's compliance record Thursday night, so they've stayed on message in that regard.

How much the committee buys into the university's defense of Freeze will play a big part into who becomes the man who replaces him for the long term. And it still remains to be seen what kind of impact, if any, Freeze's resignation has on the NCAA's case.

The NCAA had a target squarely placed on Freeze, only for someone else to come in and take the shot before it could.

Ole Miss is still facing an uphill climb against 21 allegations — 15 of which are Level I — but if it manages to avoid a two-year bowl ban then the job isn't as daunting and the players can't transfer without penalty.

So the next four or five months of off-field developments will determine where the program ultimately goes from here.